Right Girl
by chibi-chinita
Summary: "I did the wrong thing to the right girl, my mind was only in it for a minute..." How our favorite diagnostician met, fell in love with, and fell out of love with Lisa Cunningham. Rated T for language.


**Warning: Gabe/Lisa-ish, so if you ship Gabe/someone who's not Lisa then turn back now...  
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**Disclaimer: If I owned Trauma Team, there would be more Joshua and less Chloe. :)  
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"_Oh God, I did the wrong thing to the right girl_

_my mind was only in it for a minute_

_Had a bad fling with a good girl_

_I was stupid and dumb_

_not giving a—_"

Dr. Gabriel Cunningham reaches out and turns the radio down. "Damn radio..." he grumbles, getting off his couch. "Why does it always play songs that make me remember those times? Why does it always make me remember _her_?"

* * *

He remembers the day he met her as clearly as if it were yesterday. It was the day after college graduation. Gabe had been out drinking with Hank. Both of them were glad that they'd made it through the "living hell" that was Cumberland College, and in celebration, they'd decided to go out for drinks. Gabe, feeling generous that day, had offered to pick up the tab. It turned out to be a stupid idea, since Hank drank like there was no tomorrow, and Gabe's wallet hadn't exactly been full in the first place...

"Ha-ha!" Hank crowed drunkenly. He polished off his third beer and slung his arm around Gabe's shoulders. "We made it through Cumberland! Can you believe it?"

"Yeah, and this is the last chance you'll have to get drunk for a good long time, Army boy," Gabe grumbled, ordering himself another beer and extricating himself from Hank's one-armed hug. "Tomorrow you're off to boot camp, no?"

"Dun remind me," Hank slurred. "I haven't finished packin' yet... 'Nother beer here, please..."

"You gonna pay for that?" The bartender glared at Gabe. Gabe fumbled for his wallet, only to realize it was empty. "Shit," he mumbled.

The bartender sighed. Hank and Gabe had been in here several times since they'd turned twenty-one (and a couple of times before they'd hit the legal drinking age) so he knew the two of them pretty well. "Just get out of here, kid. And tell Drunkie here that I wished him good luck in the army, would ya?"

Slinging Hank's arm over his shoulder, Gabe nodded and tried as hard as he could to make a dignified exit. However, since Hank had started singing some stupid song about Bloody Mary being the girl he loved, it was kind of hard to do so. "God, I hope the pretty girls aren't watching me now," Gabe groaned.

He dragged Hank out the door, trying to figure out what to do. They'd driven to the bar, but even in his inebriated state Gabe could tell that it was a bad idea to drive back to the dorms. "I guess I'll just get a cab," he muttered, trying to wave a cab over. "Hey, wait a minute... Hank! _Hank!_ Dammit!"

Hank had, for lack of a more appropriate term, ditched Gabe. Gabe swore angrily as he watched Hank swagger down the street with a random silver-haired chick, bragging loudly about some stupid thing he'd done the day before graduation. "Dammit! Why do girls like Godzilla better than me?"

He turned back toward the street and attempted to flag down a cab. The cab drivers passed him by, seeming to sense the empty state of his wallet. With a muttered curse, he sat on the curb and glared at all the cars passing by.

A pretty blonde girl appeared and sat down next to him. "You're still out here? Didn't you leave half an hour ago?"

"Yes, I did, but my friend ditched me and I'm stuck here now because the freaking cab drivers won't pick me up," Gabe ground out.

"That sucks," the girl said sympathetically. "Here, I'll get a cab. Can't have you wandering around drunk all night." She stood up and waved to a taxi passing down the street. The taxi pulled over right away. Gabe stood uncertainly, swaying a bit. "C'mon, you want to get home before you pass out, don't you?"

Grabbing his arm, the girl steered him into the cab and sat him down. Gabe was pretty sure she was going to leave him then (after all, his best friend had just ditched him for some random chick— he wasn't exactly in the most positive mood at the moment) but she sat down on the seat next to him and crossed her legs. "Where you headed?"

He croaked out his address, surprised that someone (and a pretty girl, no less!) was actually talking to him. _Ha-ha! See, Godzilla? Girls like me too!_ he thought in triumph. "So, I didn't catch your name..." he said, leaning back and crossing his arms.

"Pierce. Lisa Pierce," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "And you are...?"

"Hey, I remember you..." Gabe said, squinting at her. "Lisa Pierce? You dated my friend Hank for a couple of weeks in high school, didn't you?"

"Hank Freebird? The football player? Yeah, I did... Oh, my God. You're Gabriel Cunningham, aren't you?"

"Yeah, that's me."

"Huh. I remember you. You were always getting in trouble with the teachers," she said, and Gabe's face fell. "All my friends were in love with you but never got up the courage to say so," she added, half of her mouth turning up in a smirk.

"Oh yeah, you were friends with all those rich girls... You and your friends were always the good girls. No wonder they all loved me, good girls always love the bad boy," he said cockily.

She laughed, and he noticed that she looked really pretty when she smiled. "We were the 'good girls' in name only. You know that saying 'Good girls are just bad girls who don't get caught'? That was us. All of us were always trying to act bad behind our parents' backs, to kind of tear off our good-girl dresses. I got really tired of all the deception. I wanted to get out."

"Huh. Never would've pictured you as the one who went against the flow."

She nodded and continued with her story. "Yeah. We stuck together for a while, though. We all graduated from the University of Maryland last week, but we're pretty much done with each other now. I'm heading out to Colorado next month, Rachel's going to New York next week, Quinn's leaving for California tomorrow, and Brittany... I don't know where that girl's going to end up, tell you the truth."

They continued to talk for a while, enjoying each other's company, until the cab pulled up outside Gabe's apartment. "Thanks for the ride, Lisa," Gabe said, clutching his stomach. All the alcohol he'd consumed was making its way down, and to tell you the truth, he was pretty sure that he'd end up vomiting on her if he stayed any longer.

She looked as if she were wrestling with herself for a moment, then hastily scribbled something on a piece of paper and shoved it into his hand. "H-here. Call that number if you end up drunk and broke outside a bar again," she said, a light flush of pink painting her cheeks.

"Thanks," he replied, swaying slightly. He struggled out of the cab and turned back for a moment. She waved goodbye. He waved back as he made his way up the front walk of the apartment building, then threw up into the bushes by the front door.

* * *

A month went by. Hank left for his Army training, Gabe moved out of the dorms and into an apartment, and somehow life seemed much quieter without Hank's booming voice echoing down the hallway. He called Lisa once in a while, but mostly he counted down the days until he would get on an airplane and fly out; a large family reunion was being held in Colorado, and although he wasn't much for family, it was a well-known fact that the Cunningham family served the best beers and the best foods at their family gatherings. Every Cunningham, large or small, always had a great time, whether they went to see their family or just to get drunk.

(He went mostly for the alcohol. It's not that he was a bad son; of course he went to see his parents, too, but it was best to face the monster known as Christina Cunningham armed with a healthy dose of alcohol. There were two things that every Cunningham learned at a young age. The first was that the family parties were amazing, and not to be missed for all the world; the second was that no one, and by that they meant _no one_, crossed Christina Cunningham without having a large supply of alcohol on hand to calm her. If the alcohol failed to calm her, at least you'd drink enough that you'd forget about her scolding by the next morning.)

_It's no wonder I ended up as such an alcoholic, with a family like this_, the green-haired man smirked. A voice snapped him out of (mostly painful) recollections, and he looked up. "Hey," Lisa said with her mouth full. "You're going out to Colorado too?" Somehow, _she_ was at the airport. A look of confusion crossed his face as she sat down next to him in the waiting area, holding a burger and a packet of French fries.

"You're going to Colorado?" he asked, a bit stunned. He didn't remember her saying anything about going out there...

"I told you so last month," she said, after swallowing the inhumanly large bite she'd taken out of her burger. "My grandfather works out there. He promised he'd help me find a job."

"That's cool," he replied, reaching for one of her French fries. She swatted his hand away. "Tell me what seat you're in on the plane first, then I'll let you have a fry."

Rolling his eyes, he reached into his jacket pocket for his ticket. He picked through various paraphernalia, attempting to find it. A couple of quarters, a candy wrapper, a ten-dollar bill, some pens, the piece of paper with Lisa's phone number, and a pack of chewing gum were placed on top of his suitcase before he finally emerged with the ticket he was looking for. "Aha!" he said triumphantly, brandishing the ticket.

She picked it out of his hand. "You keep too much stuff in your pockets," she commented idly, scanning his ticket for the seat number and row. "Oh, what do you know? You're in 18I... You're right next to me!"

"No kidding?" He looked at her ticket. "You're in 18J? Huh."

"This'll be a fun plane flight," she grinned. "Ready to spend three hours with me?"

"Of course!" he grinned back.

* * *

The plane flight didn't go as well as Gabe had hoped. A large group of teenagers boarded the plane with them, and after listening to them for a bit, he came to the conclusion that they were one of those summer marching bands, that got to go to parades all over the place. They were apparently on their way to Disneyland to play in one of the parades there. _When I was in high school, the farthest our marching band went was to the main street, _he thought grumpily, looking at the teenagers across the aisle. Two of them stared across the aisle at him, then whispered to the others and giggled.

"What do you bet that they're together?" a Hispanic girl with green eyes whispered _sotto voce_, gesturing towards Gabe and Lisa.

"Shut up, Maria," the black-haired boy sitting next to her sighed, taking out a pair of earbuds and popping them into his ears. The girl began to pester the boy by flicking random objects at him and poking him.

Gabe realized that it was going to be a long plane flight.

* * *

It was about 2:30 PM, and as the plane pulled into the Denver International Airport, the usual pre-exit chaos began. Parents picked up their children, teenagers extricated their junk from the chair pockets, everyone tried to find a garbage can for their little snack bags, and the flight attendants attempted to keep people in their seats as the pilot parked the plane. Once the pilot announced that cellphones were permitted again, Lisa flipped her phone open, switched it on, and pressed a couple of buttons. "I'm calling my grandfather to tell him I've arrived," she said to Gabe, waiting for the person on the other end of the line to pick up. "Hey, Grandpa! It's me, Lisa..."

Gabe looked over at the marching band kids across the aisle. The Hispanic girl had quieted down after the first hour or so, and was now studying what seemed to be an anatomy book. "Hey, Maria, we're going," the boy from before said. He unplugged his earbuds and helped the other girl up. "You got everything?"

"Yep!" the girl said cheerily. "So let's see if we can hit a Taco Bell or something before we get on the next plane. I don't know about you, _estúpido_, but I'm super-hungry."

"You're _always_ hungry," the boy rolled his eyes. "But I would like some French fries... You got any money?" The two of them, still talking, slipped into the aisle in front of Gabe and Lisa, and began to shuffle off the plane.

Gabe had a strange feeling that he hadn't seen the last of those two teenagers, but his thoughts were interrupted when Lisa snapped her phone shut and sighed. "I forgot how forgetful Grandpa is. He thought I was coming tomorrow, so he won't be home until midnight."

"Ah, poor you," he said, wincing sympathetically. "Do you have any other family in town?"

"Nah," she sighed. "I'll find a hotel and stay the night there or something."

He felt bad, but he couldn't think of anything to say, until he remembered. "Hey, if you want some free food, you can come with me! My family's having a big get-together, a family reunion, you know, and they said I could bring someone."

"Huh. Really? That's really nice of you!" She smiled. "Where's it at?"

"My grandparents' house. It's on the edge of town," he told her. They exited the plane and proceeded to the luggage carousel. After grabbing their bags, they went outside and Gabe attempted to flag down a taxi.

"You're still bad at getting a taxi," she commented after about fifteen minutes. She stepped to the curb and waved her arm, and magically, a cab seemed to materialize out of thin air. Grinning at him, she began to load her suitcase into the back of the car.

* * *

The family reunion went surprisingly well. Lisa and his mother hit it off right away, and every Cunningham immediately fell in love with her for that reason. (Anyone who could get along with the legendary Christina Cunningham, keep her off everyone else's back, _and_ keep her out of the alcohol was to be worshiped. Gabe was pretty sure that was a rule somewhere in the Cunningham family rulebook.) He managed to keep out of the alcohol for the most part, not wanting to look like an idiot in front of Lisa again. The party was great.

"Gabe, are you dating her?" a voice at his elbow asked. Gabe looked down to see his teenage cousin Fran, holding two drinks. "It's just punch," he added dryly, seeing Gabe's startled glance at the drink in his hand. "Although I think that one of our cousins spiked it, to tell you the truth. Tastes kind of like alcohol."

"I'm not going to ask how you know that, Froggy," Gabe sighed, declining the cup that the green-haired boy offered. As a child, Fran's favorite stuffed toy had been a frog; this, combined with the startling color of his hair, earned him the nickname Frog. He'd never been able to escape it.

"The people at my school throw some crazy parties," the other boy deadpanned. "Anyway, you haven't answered my question. Are you going out with her?"

"I— I don't know," a flush of red stained his cheeks.

"Oh, you're blushing. Well, when you get married, remember, I called it." Fran turned and walked away, ignoring the protests his older cousin sent after him.

"Nngh. Stupid Frog," Gabe mumbled. He decided to go find Lisa. If his mother had managed to get into the alcohol after all, things could get a bit messy. A quick search ensued, which ended when he found Lisa and his mother laughing by the punch bowl. Taking a quick and inconspicuous sniff of the punch, he decided that Fran was right and the punch was spiked. _Maybe he was right about Lisa, too, then_, a little voice piped up in the back of his mind. He decided that he'd had too much of that punch if he was hearing voices in his head.

Checking his watch, he realized that it was nearly eleven-thirty, and asked Lisa if she was ready to leave. She nodded, and they exited the gathering to many goodbyes. As they walked out, Gabe caught Fran's eye. The younger boy quirked his eyebrow and gave a smug smirk. The older man sighed and made a note to himself to punch his dear cousin the next time he saw him.

Lisa flagged a cab ("With your luck at getting cabs, we'll be stuck here all night," she smirked) and loaded her stuff into the trunk. "Thanks again for bringing me along," she smiled. "It was really fun! You were right; your family really does serve the best stuff at their gatherings. See you!" She waved goodbye as the cab drove away.

* * *

Later, when people asked how he'd fallen in love with Lisa, he'd tell of the night when somehow, she'd managed to charm his mother, down two beers and three cups of spiked punch, and still remain standing.

"Yep, that's when I fell in love," he would say with a sad smile. For in case you've forgotten, dear reader, this story isn't a fairy tale, and it doesn't have a happy ending...

* * *

A year passed. Gabe flew back to Maryland the next week, but found many excuses to come back out to Colorado. The excuses ranged from the actual good ones ("Spike's graduating, what kind of cousin would I be if I didn't come?") to the lame ones ("Uh, yeah," he'd say sheepishly. "Just... wanted to come out... to see the mountains?" "Gabe, you hate the outdoors."). Fran, who somehow had become Gabe's designated driver, would greet him with the same knowing smirk every time. Needless to say, the poor boy suffered through many punches.

"I could report this as child abuse, you know," the younger boy deadpanned one day as he drove Gabe over to Lisa's apartment. "But I get harder punches from the _girls_ in my class, so I guess it's okay. Your punches are weak, cuz."

"Shut up," Gabe grumbled as they started down the road leading to the apartments.

"_Someone's_ even grumpier than usual today," Fran noted as he slowed for a red light. "Wait. You're grumpy. You're nervous. You're wearing a _suit_, and I know what it takes to get you into a suit. You're playing nervously with something in your pocket." He ticked these "symptoms" off on his fingers as they waited for the light to turn green. "Gabe... Are you going to...?"

"Dammit, Frog, you could become a diagnostician. I'm telling you," the man sighed, as he had his secret plans deduced in an instant by a sixteen-year-old. He waited for a snarky comment, but nothing came except for a "Good luck".

"Thanks, Fran," he said nervously as he got out of the car.

"You'll do fine, cuz," Fran said, tapping his fingers on the dashboard. Gabe smiled, feeling a bit more confident, and started the walk towards Lisa's apartment.

However, he did catch the whisper directed at him as he left, and turned to catch a glimpse of Fran's smirk as he pulled away.

"_I called it_," the boy's whisper echoed in his mind.

* * *

She said yes, of course, and they got married the following spring. Fran had a self-satisfied smirk on his face during the entire ceremony, and Hank couldn't believe what was happening. He went through the whole wedding with a shell-shocked look on his face.

"_Gabe. _You were the King of Asses in high school. You retained that title all through college. So how, _how_, did you manage to get a _girlfriend_ before you turned thirty, let alone get married?" the tall man asked, draping an arm over Gabe at the reception.

"You're just jealous 'cause you don't have a girlfriend yet, big guy," Gabe winked at his friend. "Now if you'll excuse me, the first dance is about to start, and before it starts, I've got to get my dear cousins away from the punch. Don't want them spiking it again."

Hank grinned as his friend walked away. "Well... You did a good job, Gabe. Now good luck."

* * *

Another year or so passed. Lisa became pregnant, and nine months later, they had a baby boy. Little Joshua was very loved by his parents, but by the time he turned two, the cracks were beginning to show in Gabe and Lisa's marriage. The two of them didn't smile at each other as much anymore, didn't seem quite as loving, but if you were an outsider to their marriage you would never have noticed the difference. The two of them still loved Joshua just as much, but, although they hated to admit it, they were falling out of love.

Fran, who was attending Cumberland and following in his cousin's footsteps, came to visit once, to see his nephew. The perceptive boy immediately picked up on the colder air. He played with Joshua for a bit, then asked Lisa if he could take Gabe out for a drink, to "have a guy-to-guy talk", as he put it.

"You're not in love anymore." Fran stated this flatly as he started up the car. A rock song came on the radio, loud and filled with a wailing electric guitar. Wrinkling his nose, the boy pressed a button and the radio switched to a more pop-sounding song.

"I don't freaking know," Gabe groaned, putting his head down on the dashboard. "I still love her, but it's like, it's not the same as it used to be."

The song on the radio ended, and a slower, more piano-filled song came on. "So what are you going to do?" Fran asked, slowing for a red light. A memory hit Gabe like a truck, a memory of stopping at a red light in this same car, the day that he proposed to Lisa.

"I... I want to be with her still," he admitted quietly. "But it's hard. I don't mean to, but we always end up arguing, and it hurts."

Fran sighed. "Don't think I know anything about this relationship stuff. I don't. I'm still clueless as to whether someone likes me or not. But, I don't know, maybe you should tell her that."

"Ugh. I'll try."

"Good luck," Fran said, and the same memory hit Gabe again.

"What if I can't do anything to fix it? What if I can't save what we have?" he asked desperately. He knew that it was sad, here he was, twenty-nine and trying to get a college student to solve his problems for him, but he seriously didn't know what to do.

"Then..." Gabe waited for some comforting word to drop from Fran's lips, but the only thing that came out instead was "You'll need to be brave."

* * *

Two days before Joshua's third birthday, they had a fight over something. He didn't even remember what the argument was about, only the end result.

Lisa took Joshua and ran out of their house.

As he had done so many times before, Gabriel Cunningham watched as his wife flagged down a taxi.

But this time, as she climbed into the cab and went away, she didn't wave goodbye.

She didn't even look back, just stared blankly out the window as the scenery flashed by the window.

* * *

_—The blank stare out the window_

_If I could just sober up, if I could just admit  
_

_I did the wrong thing to the right girl_

_It was your world baby and I just lived in it_

_(Please, please, baby come back, please, please, baby come back)_

The music becomes slightly louder as Gabe snaps out of his flashback. "Nngh." He snaps the radio off. The phone rings, and he picks up. After a brief conversation with Naomi, Maria Torres bangs into his office, holding a clipboard, and informs him that Shelly Brooks wants to meet with him. She insults the kid (_don't know why_, Gabe thinks, _they'd actually be pretty good together, _and a memory flashes in the back of his head of two marching band kids on an airplane), then her tone changes abruptly as she holds out a clipboard to him. "We're understaffed, and the Chief wants you to take this one."

He scans the clipboard idly, checking the basic information, until two words jump out at him.

_Joshua Cunningham. _"But the patient's... Joshua?"

"Well, if you don't want to, I can ask another doctor," Maria grumbles. He can practically see the little thought bubble over her head: "_But then that means I have to go find another doctor to do it, and I'll be stuck running all over the hospital, so just say yes, asshole_."

"What kind of doctor would I be if I chose my patients?" Gabe replies.

As he prepares for the diagnosis, a picture on his cluttered desk catches his eye, and a wistful smile drifts over his face.

The faces of himself, Lisa, and a two-year-old Joshua smile at him as Dr. Gabriel Cunningham exits his office, to see his son for the first time in seven years.

* * *

**fail ending is fail OTL**

**I seem to enjoy doing backstory fics too much...  
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**This turned out kind of AU-ish.. ^^; Although, if you ignore Maria and CR on the plane, I guess this would work as a normal fic. :]**

**Also, ~SweatshirtNinja, I know you are obsessed with Sam/Gabe but I wanted to try this. ;P  
**


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